


Dispatches

by osprey_archer



Category: American Girls Books - Various Authors, American Girls: Molly - Various Authors
Genre: Epistolary, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 03:20:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Emily went back to England, she and Molly became penpals. But when Molly learns that food in England is still rationed years after the end of the war, she offers to help - an offer that doesn't go as she expects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dispatches

It had been almost a year since sugar had finally come off rationing, but it still surprised and delighted Molly to arrive home after her tap lessons to the smell of fresh-baked cookies.

Delighted - but also a little anxious. Molly’s sister Jill had told her that chocolate caused zits, and Molly, anxious to get rid of the smattering of pimples on her forehead, had sworn to stop eating chocolate. But if Molly’s mother had made chocolate chip cookies, would Molly be able to resist?

Molly peeked into the kitchen, standing on her tiptoes to see the cookies. Snickerdoodles! “Yes!” Molly said, and piled three snickerdoodles on a plate.

Molly’s mother, standing by the sink, smiled at her. “There’s also a surprise for you,” she said, gesturing with a soapy hand at a thin envelope with a red and blue border that sat on the counter.

“A letter from Emily!” Molly cried. She snatched the letter from the counter. Emily had returned to England soon after V-E Day, but since then, she and Molly had become penfriends. “Thanks, Mom!” Molly cried, and she was so pleased that she almost forgot to take her snickerdoodles with her when she raced up to her room to read the letter. 

_July 1948_

_Dear Molly,_

_Splendid news! Bread has finally come off rationing. Mum actually waltzed around the flat holding the first unrationed loaf that we bought._

_Yesterday Eleanor and I bought two buns at the shops with the last of my Christmas money. It felt almost shocking to be able to buy them out of a shop without showing Mother’s ration book, almost as if they were black-market nylons! I said this to Eleanor, and she whispered, “They’re black market buns. They have secret messages baked in them that we have to smuggle past the Communist spies.”_

_“We ought to hide them, then,” I said._

_“No, we must act casual,” Eleanor said. “Because if we hide them, the Reds will know we have something important.”_

_It is very hard to act casual when you are actually trying. I don’t know how spies do it._

_We took the buns down to the duck pond in the park near Eleanor’s flat. We had agreed that as soon as bread came off rationing, we should feed the ducks an _entire bun_. But we felt so guilty about throwing away bread on ducks that we ate most of the buns ourselves, and only gave the ducks crumbs. _

_Yours,  
Emily _

Molly read the letter twice before picking up her pen to reply. Normally Molly found it hard to respond to Emily’s letters. They were so vivid and chatty, almost like a storybook, whereas Molly struggled to fill a page. The blank sheets seemed to stare at Molly menacingly, as if to say, _Come up with something to write - or else_. 

Molly usually came up with something in the end, but it always seemed dull compared to Emily’s lettes. 

Of course, Emily’s life in London was much more exciting than Molly’s in Jefferson, Illinois. Imagine, still having rationing three years after the war! Molly looked down at the snickerdoodle she held in her hand. How awful it would be to win the war and still have nothing good to eat. 

For once, Molly’s first sentences flowed off her pen. 

_August 1948_

_Dear Emily,_

_How can bread have only just come off rationing! The war has been over for three years! How can bread still be rationed after all this time? Is everything else rationed also? I feel so sorry for you._

The rest of the letter took much longer to write. There was plenty of news about Molly’s family and friends. Her sister Jill was getting ready to go to the University of Illinois in the fall. Her little brother Brad had broken a window playing baseball with his friends. Molly’s friend Susan had a crush on the soda jerk at the drugstore, even though Molly and Linda thought that “jerk” was exactly the right word for him. 

But Molly found it hard to concentrate. Her mind kept wandering back to poor Emily, living in England where the rationing was so harsh that her mother danced with a loaf of bread. 

Finally she set her letter aside with a sigh. Clearly she wouldn’t finish it today. 

***

She would send Emily a care package! 

Molly bounced out of bed, thrilled by the thought that had come to her when she woke up. She spun around, hugging herself in her pajamas - and then stopped. 

How would she get money for a care package? Last year, Molly’s class had raised money to buy packages from the organization CARE to send to hungry children in France. They had raised over a hundred dollars - and that had only been enough for ten packages! Even if Mollly sent a smaller package on her own, it would not be cheap. 

And unlike Emily, Molly never managed to save her Christmas money all the way to summertime. She didn’t even have any money left from her birthday in April. 

But she could make money! Jill made lots of money babysitting, and her clients would need a new sitter with Jill leaving for college in just a few weeks. And Molly could probably find a few new clients of her own! Everyone seemed to be having babies these days. 

There were probably more babysitting jobs than Molly could do on her own! Maybe she could convince Linda and Susan to start a babysitting business. They could make flyers that very afternoon! If they all pooled their babysitting money, they would probably be able to send Emily a care package in just a few weeks. 

Molly looked at her letter, almost complete. She snatched up her pen and wrote, _What kind of food do you want? I will send you a package and then you’ll have plenty to eat!_

She didn’t even pause to get dressed before running out to put her letter in the mailbox. 

***

“ _Bread rationing_?” said Linda. She and Susan were staring at Molly round-eyed with horror. “But the war’s been over for three years!” 

Molly nodded vigorously, pleased by their reaction. “Isn’t it awful?” she said, straightening the pile of paper sitting in front of her: the bases for their babysitting flyers. “But remember how we raised money to send CARE packages last year? I was thinking we could do it again, for Emily! We can make money babysitting - I have all the materials we need right here to make flyers!” 

Molly paused, looking at her two friends expectantly. But Susan and Linda did not jump at her idea as she had hoped. Instead they glanced at each other and then down at the table. 

“Don’t you want to help our friend Emily?” Molly demanded. 

“She’s really more _your_ friend,” Susan said, tracing the grain of the wood with one finger. “You’re the one she writes letters to. And you never share them with us.” 

Now it was Molly’s turn to look down at the table. Linda and especially Susan had always been curious about Emily’s letters. Maybe Molly had been a little selfish not to share. But weren’t letters supposed to be private? 

“And I need money myself, Molly,” Linda said. “Mom says if I want new shoes, I need to buy them myself.” 

Susan was nodding. “Gloria says Steve is way more likely to notice me if I wear makeup,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about getting nail polish and lipstick...or maybe not lipstick, maybe that would come off when I’m eating ice cream. What about perfume?” 

Molly looked at them, dismayed. “I know you want new shoes and makeup. But you don’t really need them like Emily needs food! You remember how thin she was when she came here. She probably looks like a skeleton now.” 

Linda and Susan looked down at the table again, silent and abashed. But Molly could tell it wasn’t an agreeing silence; they just didn’t have a counter-argument against Emily the skeleton. 

Molly thought fast. “How about we only pool _half_ of our money to send a care package to Emily?” she suggested. “Then you’ll still be able to get your things, but we’ll also be able to send Emily a package pretty quickly.” 

Linda’s frown cleared. “All right,” she said. 

But Susan didn’t say anything. “Susan?” Molly prodded. 

“All right,” said Susan slowly. “ _If_ you’ll promise that you’ll use some of your money to get ice cream at the soda fountain, so I can talk to Steve.” 

Molly’s face twisted into a grimace. Susan’s soda jerk Steve always made fun of Molly’s glasses. “I could give you some of my money so you could go to the soda fountain more often yourself,” Molly suggested. 

“No! It would be too embarrassing to go alone.” 

Molly sighed. But it was only fair that she should have to make a sacrifice too. “All right,” she said. “Now let’s make some flyers!” 

***

The last days of summer passed quickly as babysitting jobs poured in, but still, Molly was impatient for Emily’s reply to arrive. It was almost as bad as waiting for Christmas to arrive. Maybe even worse, because at least she knew the date that Christmas would get there. 

But at last, one day after she got home from babysitting the Tozzini’s twins, a striped airmail envelope waited for her on the counter! 

Molly was so excited that she held the envelope between her hands. She almost didn’t _want_ to open it, the anticipation was so intense. What would Emily ask for? Molly hoped it was something big. Maybe a whole goose for Christmas! Molly had never seen a roasted goose, but she knew the English ate them, like the Cratchit family in _The Christmas Carol_. 

Molly could almost imagine the Bennetts sitting down to the Christmas dinner, admiring their roast goose - maybe their first roast goose since the war began! And Emily’s father would raise his glass in a toast, and say, “We never could have had this wonderful meal without Emily’s friend Molly McIntire!” 

And everyone else at the meal - they would invite all their relatives and friends, of course, to share their glorious feast - would toast too. “To Molly McIntire!” they would say. 

Molly almost floated up the stairs to her room. She sat down on her bed with a bounce and ripped open the envelope.

_August 1948_

_Dear Molly,_

_We are not going hungry. In fact, we are very well fed indeed. You need not to send us anything._

_Emily_

That was all. No stories, no chat, just a single cramped line of writing with pen strokes that seemed to slash the page. 

Molly set the letter down on her desk, feeling a knot growing in her throat. The letter was so short, and Emily hadn’t signed herself _Yours_ like she usually did, just a curt, angry _Emily_. 

Angry! Why should Emily be angry at Molly? Molly crumbled up the letter and hurled it at her wastebasket, but she was so angry that she missed. Molly had been trying to do something nice for her friend! What did Emily have to be mad about? 

“Fine!” Molly shouted at the letter. She kicked the crumpled paper under her bed. “We’ll spend all the money we collected for you getting root beer floats down at the drugstore where Susan’s soda jerk works! _Susan_ appreciates it when we do nice things for her!” 

***

Unfortunately, out of sight was not out of mind. School had started again, and the bustle of Molly’s days let her forget Emily’s letter. But when school and tap lessons and babysitting were over, when Molly came back to her room for the night, she saw her airmail envelopes waiting on her desk, and that made her think of Emily’s letter, crumpled up under the bed and waiting for a reply. 

After a few days, she hid the envelopes in a desk drawer, but by then it was too late. Just walking into the room made her think of Emily’s letter. 

Molly couldn’t bear to tell Susan and Linda that Emily didn’t want any package. She knew they would be sympathetic about Emily’s ingratitude. But when she imagined their indignation on her behalf, rather than making her feel better, it just made her feel shabby. 

Still, they kept asking about the package. Despite their initial doubts, Susan especially had gotten very excited about the idea. “So have you sent it yet?” Susan asked eagerly over lunch one day. “I think her family will be just as happy as children on Christmas when they open it up.”

Molly winced inwardly, remembering her own visions of delight and gratitude. “She said it would be better to send it around Thanksgiving time,” she invented. “But we have enough money to send it, so you can keep all your babysitting money now.” 

“But the English don’t celebrate Thanksgiving,” Linda objected. 

“Well - no,” Molly faltered. “But you have to send it early to be there in time for Christmas!”

Saying she would send a package at Christmas didn’t _have_ to be a lie, Molly reasoned later. Maybe by Christmas she and Emily would be friends again, if Molly apologized - 

Apologize! The first time Molly thought the word, she felt even angrier than when she had first read Emily’s terse letter. _Molly_ apologize! No! She would send Emily a letter even shorter than the one Emily had sent. _Be that way_ , Molly would write. See how Emily liked _that_!

But as the weeks passed and the leaves fell from the trees and no more letters from Emily arrived, Molly’s anger faded. How angry was Emily? What if she never wrote again? 

One day, walking home from a late babysitting job under an autumn rain that melted the fallen leaves into a sodden mush that clung to Molly’s usually cheerful red galoshes, Molly felt suddenly that she had to reply to Emily’s letter _now_. If she let any more time pass, it would be impossible to write: it would simply seem too awkward. 

When Molly got home she crawled under her bed to retrieve the letter, then smoothed it open on her desk. Rereading it, she felt a spark of anger again, but she forced herself to think past her own reaction to the hurt feelings that must have pushed reserved, thoughtful Emily to make such an angry response. Molly had meant to make Emily happy, but instead she had hurt her friend’s feelings. Surely she could make that right. 

_October 1948_

_Dear Emily_

Molly stopped. She stared at the empty expanse of the paper. Her mind felt exactly as blank as the sheet. 

If only she could have seen Emily face to face! If they could talk, Molly was sure that Emily would see how sorry Molly was. But how could Molly write an apology that showed how sincerely sorry she was?

Well, start by apologizing, obviously. 

_I’m sorry._

Molly stopped writing again, twiddling her pen between her fingers. What more could she write? She straightened the page. The gooseneck lamp seemed to cast a spotlight on her paper, as if it were a spy under interrogation. 

How much blank space there was on a single page! How could she ever fill it up? She didn’t want the letter to be too short. But she could not think of anything else to write. 

A light knock on the door jolted Molly out of her stupor. “It’s time to go to sleep, olly Molly,” Mrs. McIntire said. “Lights out.”

“But I’m not done yet!” Molly said.

“Your essay can wait till the morning,” Mrs. McIntire said. 

“It’s not an essay, Molly said. “It’s a letter to Emily, and if I don’t write it _now_ , I never will.” Suddenly she pushed the paper away from her and leaned back in her chair, fingers pressed to her forehead. “But I’m stuck. I don’t know what to say except ‘I’m sorry.’”

Her mother opened the door. “Did you have a fight with Emily?” she asked. 

And the whole story came tumbling out. “ - and I guess I hurt her pride,” Molly finished, surprised to find that in the telling, she had figured out why Emily might be angry. “I thought I wanted - I mean, I did want to do something nice for her, but I wanted to swoop in and be a hero too, as if she were a damsel in distress.” She was silent, looking unseeing at the ballpoint pen that she turned over slowly between her fingers. “I loved her letters. It was almost like getting installments of my very own radio serial.”

Mrs. McIntire smiled. “Maybe you should write her that,” she said. Molly picked up her pen to add it to her letter, but her mother added, “Maybe not at the top of the letter. Finish apologizing first.”

“But if I don’t write it down _now_ , I won’t remember,” Molly said. 

Mrs. McIntire searched Molly’s desk for a piece of scrap paper. “Write it down here,” she suggested. “We can make a list of things you want to say to Emily, and then you can put them in your letter.”

Molly and her mother talked for nearly an hour, and after that Molly remained awake till almost midnight, writing and rewriting on a scrap sheet of paper till she had the letter right. 

***

_October 1948_

_Dear Emily,_

_I’m sorry. I wanted to do something nice for you, because you are my friend and I like your letters so much, but I didn’t think about your feelings._

_I know you don’t _need_ food, just like I didn’t need a chocolate cake at my birthday party. Remember how we argued about that? You wanted a real English tea, but I wanted an American birthday cake even though it wasn’t English, and we were both so stubborn we had a huge fight. I hope we can make up now like we did then. _

_I miss your letters. It’s like getting a new installment of a radio serial whenever one arrives. I know mine are not as interesting as yours. I thought a package might make you as happy as your letters always make me._

_Can we be friends again?_

_Your very sorry friend,  
Molly_

***

A few days later, Molly arrived home dispirited from yet another visit to the drugstore. Soda _jerk_ indeed! Molly kicked off her saddle shoes, still fuming about his comments about “four-eyes.” What did Susan see in him? 

What if all boys hated glasses? Molly tipped her glasses onto the top of her head and frowned at her reflection in the darkened window, trying to see if she looked prettier without glasses. But she couldn’t see her reflection well enough to tell. Molly sighed and pushed her glasses back into place, heading for the kitchen in hope of leftover pie. 

And Susan wanted to go _again_ tomorrow!

But when Molly reached the kitchen, all thoughts of soda jerks fled her mind. She stood in the doorway, book bag dangling from her hand, and stared. An airmail envelope waited on the end of the counter. 

Perhaps it was for Molly’s father. He had befriended some fellow doctors when he was in England during the war. 

But no. _Molly McIntire_ , it said, in Emily’s elegant, readable hand. 

But it was much too early for a response from Emily! Molly snatched the letter off the counter, turning the airmail envelope over carefully as if it might disintegrate in her hands. The envelope, usually so slim, bulged slightly; it had not just one but _three_ airmail stamps. 

She ripped open the envelope, but stopped herself before taking out the contents. She hurried up the steps in her room instead and tipped the envelope open on her red bedspread. 

Clippings about Princess Elizabeth’s marriage to Philip last year! 

Of course the American newspapers had covered the event as well, but Molly had not paid much attention; she wasn’t as interested in the princesses as she had been when Emily visited and they admired Emily’s royal family scrapbook together. But now Molly poured over the carefully preserved newspaper articles and the glossy magazine photo of Princess Elizabeth in her beautiful wedding gown as carefully as she had when she was nine. 

Had Emily taken these things out of her treasured scrapbook? How kind of her! 

Mixed in among the clippings, Molly found a folded letter. 

_September 1948_

_Dear Molly,_

_I apologize. You made a kind offer in your last letter, and my response was rude. I feel so foolish thinking of it that it is almost hard to write to you, because I’m afraid you must think me ridiculous._

_The truth is that I feel like I owe your family so much already, I didn’t think I could stand to be under any more obligation. Not only did you take me in when my aunt was ill, but all of you were so welcoming to me! Even Ricky, once he realized I knew more about aeroplanes than he did._

_Whereas Eleanor and her little brother were evacuated to a rector’s house in Yorkshire and spent the better part of three years eating porridge thrice a day and doing battle with the rats who invested the house. It sounds terribly jolly the way she tells it, but I know it must have been awful. She has a frightful scar on her knee from a rat bite. And I know other girls at school who suffered worse._

_It is Eleanor who showed me how silly I was being refusing your kind offer. “When you bought us buns with your Christmas money, did I toss mine in the gutter because I couldn’t pay you back?” she asked. “Friendship is not a cricket match: you don’t keep score, but help each other when you have the chance.”_

_Besides, she and her little brother have heard so much from me about American “candy bars.” If you are still willing to send food to me despite my foolishness, they are desperately curious about Reeses cups._

_Yours,  
Emily_

Molly read the letter once, twice, three times, then had to set it aside, because she was smiling so hard her cheeks were beginning to hurt. She opened her desk drawer and set her airmail stamps and envelopes back in pride of place on her desk, then took out a new sheet of paper. She tapped her ballpoint pen against her lower lip, looking down at the blank page. It seemed to promise years of letters and friendship, waiting to be filled. 

_Dear Emily_ , Molly began.

**Author's Note:**

> In the US, most rationing stopped soon after World War II ended, although in some places sugar rationing remained in effect until 1947. 
> 
> In contrast, rationing in England, which had always been more severe than in the US, remained in effect for years after the war was over. (Curiously, however, bread rationing didn't begin until after the end of the war. Politics are weird.) Food rationing didn't end completely until 1954.


End file.
